Monday, October 4, 2010

Rubicon - "A Good Day's Work"

Truxton Spangler (Michael Cristofer) enjoys a glass of "the good stuff".

Photo Credit: AMC

Review by Paul Steven Brown

'Rubicon'
Season 1 - Episode 11
"A Good Day's Work"

The presence of Andy in Will's life has provided a voice for the idea that intelligence work is glamorous and action packed. What we've learned watching 'Rubicon' is that it can be slow and tedious, and in Will's case, the action is brutal and vicious. So, it's no surprise that when Andy makes a badly timed appearance at Will's apartment just hours after he had just killed a man in self-defense (and whose body was chopped up and removed), it makes sense that he doesn't want her around anymore.
Andy really doesn't get the seriousness of Will's life. Part of that blame falls on our beleaguered analyst for not telling her everything, which he shouldn't due to national security and her own safety. But, Andy has only seen Will's life as some spy fantasy come to life and has never been able to fathom the reality of his situation. In "A Good Day's Work" Will certainly comes face to face with the consequences of his actions.

When Kale gets Will's phone call for help, he genuinely seems concerned. He was all business about cleaning up the mess and getting rid of the body, but Kale's demeanor towards Will was almost compassionate. Maybe Kale really does care about Will, as he does Maggie. My only problem with this sequence of events is that Kale didn't really express any emotions over the fact that it was his old pal Donald Bloom that was lying in a pool of blood. Maybe we'll get more on this next week.

We also learn what exactly the Atlas MacDowell boys have been doing all this time. They've been using API information to profit off of political and industrial tragedy around the world for decades. They have a web of corporations all over the world that have at least two of them on the board. The reason that Katherine Rhumor's husband and Gerald Bradley killed themselves was over the guilt of being party to so much death and destruction. Tom Rhumor committed suicide because the crossword puzzle indicated the launch of an operation and he could not live with the consequences.

This leads me to believe that Atlas MacDowell is connected to Kateb, the terrorist that Will's team has been trying to track down. Another interesting development is that Kateb is really a white American male from New Jersey, who became disenfranchised and joined up with a terrorist organization. What's even scarier is that Kateb has been spotted crossing the border from Mexico into the U.S. What does he have planned?

Tanya gets brought back from rehab early so she can help out on the Kateb situation due to the time sensitivity of the matter. She's clearly not ready to come back and she tears through her office looking for some form of medication to no avail. Julia's presence on the team doesn't help either. It makes her feel replaceable. At least Grant is making an effort to make her feel part of the team again.

Spangler is really putting the moves on Grant. Truxton is building Grant up right when the analyst has been having problems at home. Also, Grant was very resentful of Will's promotion and he didn't seem too happy when Will wanted everything ran through Miles first. It will be interesting to see how far over to the dark side Grant will fall to.